Peter Mark Roget - Roget in Art and Culture

Roget in Art and Culture

Canadian writer Keath Fraser published a story, "Roget's Thesaurus," in 1982 which is narrated in Roget's voice. Minimalist in style, Fraser's story manages to capture both the associative power of language and many of the salient facts of Roget's life in a text that occupies less than two full pages.

Roget was the focus of the play "Synonymy" by Randy Wyatt. It tells the story of a graduate student named Gordon who rents out the last known residence of Roget to inspire him as he works on his dissertation regarding the English language and Roget's Thesaurus. The building, which was soon to be torn down, created a gateway in which Gordon found himself traveling back in time and meeting Roget and his daughter, Kate. "Synonymy" premiered at Minnesota State University's Department of Theatre and Dance in December 2005.

He is also a character in the play "An Experiment with an Air Pump" by Shelagh Stephenson, which concerns scientific ethics. The play takes place in the household of Joseph Fenwick in 1799 – Roget appears as one of Fenwick's assistants.

Read more about this topic:  Peter Mark Roget

Famous quotes containing the words art and/or culture:

    “Great art is never produced for its own sake. It is too difficult to be worth the effort.”
    —George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)

    “I am writing to resist the view that Europe and civilization are going to Hell. If I am being “crucified for an idea”Mthat is, the coherent idea around which my muddles accumulated—it is probably the idea that European culture ought to survive, that the best qualities of it ought to survive along with whatever cultures, in whatever universality. Against the propaganda of terror and the propaganda of luxury, have you a nice simple answer?”
    —Ezra Pound (1885–1972)